Tax Evasion in the Lab: How Context Affects Tax Compliance

The issue of tax compliance represents one of the topics where laboratory experiments may provide important insights into human economic decision making. The empirical evidence on the topic is limited as the decision on tax evasion is purely private information of the taxpayer. The experiment presented in the paper focuses on two main topics. At first, we analyze potential influence of two factors probability of being caught while cheating on taxes and penalty rate imposed on subject who evade. We conclude that behavior of the Czech subjects corresponds to foreign results. At the same time, there is a stronger effect when probability of being caught increases. The effect of increasing penalty rate is rather moderate. Second research question focuses on the terminology used during the experiment. We find that the rate of tax compliance is higher within experimental sessions where subjects face neutral language in the instructions compared to the group with loaded instruction (tax language). This behavior contradicts the results to date and indicates possible country effect which could be linked to specifics of post transformational society.